the whole population of the city-amounting, it was believed, to nearly three hundred thousand. Nor was a pretext wanting to give an appearance of justice to the daring act which they contemplated. Cortes had just received intelligence that a battle had been fought between the garrison which he had left at Villa Rica, and a body of Mexicans under the command of the Mexican governor of a province adjacent to the Spanish settlement. Although Cortes cared little for this occurrence, he resolved to avail himself of it for his purpose; so, after a night spent in prayer for the blessing of God on what he was about to do, he proceeded with five of his officers and the two interpreters, Donna Marina and Aguilar, to Montezuma's palace. The monarch, as usual, received him kindly; but when Cortes, after upbraiding him with being the cause of the attack on the Spanish garrison at Villa Rica, as well as with the attempt made by the Cholulans to arrest his own progress towards Mexico, informed him that he had come to take him prisoner, he could no longer contain himself, but gave full vent to his rage and astonishment. But the rage of an Indian prince was impotent against the stern resolution of the European general; and as the helpless monarch gazed on the unyielding countenances of his visitors, whose fingers were playing with the hilts of their swords, his anger changed into terror: he was seized with a fit of trembling, and the tears gushed into his eyes. Without any resistance, he was removed in his royal litter to the Spanish quarters, giving it out to his nobles and subjects that he went voluntarily, on a visit to Cortes, and desiring them to remain quiet.

Another degradation awaited the unhappy monarch. He was obliged to surrender the governor and three other chiefs, who had led the attack on the garrison of Villa Rica; and these were burned alive by the orders of Cortes, in front of Montezuma's palace, the emperor himself being kept in irons while the execution was going

on.

All this took place within ten days of the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico; and, for three or four months, Montezuma continued a prisoner in the Spanish quarters. Here he was attended with the most profound respect, Cortes himself never approaching him without taking off his cap, and punishing severely every attempt, on the part of any of his soldiers, to insult the royal captive. Such instances, however, were very rare; for the kindly demeanor of Montezuma, his gentleness under his misfortunes, and, above all, his

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liberality to those about him, won the hearts of the Spaniards, and made him a general favourite. Nor did Montezuma make any attempt to regain his liberty. Attended by his officers as usual, he received deputations and transacted business; amused himself by various Mexican games, and appeared to delight in the society of some of the Spaniards, for whom he had contracted a particular partiality.

The Spanish general was now absolute in Anahuac; Montezuma acted under his instructions; and officers were sent out in different directions to survey the country, and ascertain the situation and extent of the gold and silver mines, as if all belonged to the King of Spain. Nor was the formal cession of the kingdom by Montezuma long delayed. Assembling all his nobles at the instigation of Cortes, the Indian monarch addressed them, desiring them to concur with him in surrendering their empire to the Spaniards, who were to come from the rising sun. "For eighteen years,' he said, 'that I have reigned, I have been a kind monarch to you, and you have been faithful subjects to me; indulge me, then, with this last act of obedience.' The princes, with many sighs and tears, promised Montezuma, who was still more affected, that they would do whatever he desired. He then sent a message to Cortes, telling him that, on the ensuing day, he and his princes would tender their allegiance to his majesty, the emperor. This they accordingly did at the time appointed, in the presence of all the Spanish officers and many

of the soldiers, not one of whom could refrain from weeping on beholding the agitation and distress of the great and generous Montezuma."

Montezuma accompanied the surrender of his kingdom with the gift of an immense treasure, which he had concealed in an apartment within their quarters, desiring it to be sent to Spain, as tributemoney to King Charles from his vassal Montezuma. The sight of this treasure roused the avaricious passions of the Spanish soldiers, and they clamoured for a division of the wealth which had been collected since their entrance into Mexico. Cortes was obliged to yield to their demand. The whole wealth amassed during their residence in Mexico amounted, according to Mr. Prescott's calculation, to about one million four hundred thousand pounds sterling, including not only the gold cast into ingots, but also the various articles of jewelry, which were of too fine workmanship to be melted down. The mode of division was this:-First, his majesty's fifth was set aside; next, a fifth of the remainder was set aside for Cortes; after that, all the debts of the expedition were to be discharged, including the amount vested in the expedition by Velasquez, the payment of agents in Spain, &c.; then the losses incurred in the expedition were to be made good, including the expense of the ships sunk off Villa Rica, the price of the horses killed, &c.; and lastly, certain individuals in the army, as the clergymen and the captains, were to receive larger allowances than the rest. "By the time all these drafts were made," says Bernal Diaz, "what remained for each soldier was hardly worth stooping for;" in other words, instead of amounting to ten or fifteen thousand dollars, as they had expected, each soldier's share came only to about fifteen hundred dollars. Many refused to take their shares, complaining of injustice in the division, and it required all the skill and management of Cortes to soothe the spirits of the discontented. Not a few, it appeared in the end, were no richer for all the prize-money they had obtained than when they left Cuba; for, as Bernal Diaz tells us, "deep gaming went on day and night with cards made out of the heads of drums."

Only one source of discomfort now remained to Cortes. This was the continuance of the idolatrous worship of the Mexicans. This subject occupied his thoughts incessantly; and he could not persuade himself that his efforts would be meritorious in the eyes of God, or even that he could hope for permanent success, until the false gods of the Mexicans had been shattered in pieces, and their

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temples converted into Christian sanctuaries. Not only as a devout Catholic did he abominate the existence of a false worship in a country over which he had control, but, as a man, as a native of a civilized country, he shrunk in abhorrence from the bloody and sickening rites which formed part of the religion of the Mexicans-their human sacrifices-accompanied, strangely enough, among a people so polished and so advanced in ingenious arts, by the practice of cannibalism. At length Cortes announced to Montezuma that he must allow at least a part of the great temple to be converted into a Christian place of worship. Montezuma had been a priest, and the proposal was, perhaps, the most shocking that could have been made to him. He gave his consent, however, and one of the sanctuaries on the top of the temple was purified, and an altar and a crucifix erected in it.

This last act filled up the measure of Mexican endurance. To see their monarch a prisoner, to surrender their kingdom and its treasures these they could submit to; but could they sit tamely under an insult offered to their gods? Hither and thither, through the city, ran the priests, with haggard faces and hair clotted with blood, stirring up the zeal of the inhabitants, and denouncing woes unless the Spaniards were expelled. The crisis was imminent, and every possible precaution was used to prevent a sudden surprise by the excited Mexicans.

It was now the month of May, 1520, and the Spaniards had been six months in the Mexican capital. Suddenly the little army was thrown into consternation by intelligence of an unexpected kind received by Cortes.

It will be remembered that, before advancing into the interior of the country, Cortes had despatched a vessel to Spain with letters to the emperor, Charles V., and a quantity of treasure. Contrary to the instructions of Cortes, the vessel touched at Cuba, on its voyage; and a sailor escaping conveyed to Velasquez an account of all that had taken place in the expedition, down to the foundation of Villa Rica. The rage of Velasquez exceeded all bounds. He wrote letters to the home government, and also to the court for colonial affairs established in Hispaniola; and, not content with this, he instantly began to fit out a second expedition, which was to proceed to Mexico, depose or decapitate Cortes, and seize the country for the Spanish sovereign in the name of the governor of Cuba. The fleet was larger, with one exception, than any yet fitted out for the navigation

of the seas of the New World. It consisted of nineteen vessels, carrying upwards of a thousand foot-soldiers, twenty cannons, eighty horsemen, a hundred and sixty musketeers and crossbow-men, besides a thousand Indian servants-a force sufficient, as it seemed, to render all resistance on the part of Cortes hopeless. Velasquez, at first, intended to command the expedition in person; but, as he was too old and too unwieldy for such a laborious task, he intrusted it to Don Pamfilo de Narvaez, described as a man "about forty-two years of age, of tall stature, and large limbs, a full face, red beard, and agreeable presence; very sonorous and lofty in his speech, as if the sound came out of a vault; a good horseman, and said to be valiant."

The fleet anchored off the coast of Mexico, at San Juan de Ulloa, on the 23d of April, 1520. Here Narvaez received information which astonished him-that Cortes was master of the Mexican capital; that the Mexican emperor was his prisoner; that the country and its treasures had been surrendered to the Spanish sovereign; and that at present his rival was as absolute in it as if he were its